


Say Anything (But Say What You Mean)

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU that fits into canon sort of, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-10
Updated: 2012-09-10
Packaged: 2017-11-13 22:45:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/508535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he clicks the “unfollow” button, it's feels like a bottomless pit of shame, despair, sexual frustration, and ice has just opened up inside him.</p>
<p>Maybe he should just become a hipster blog.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say Anything (But Say What You Mean)

**Author's Note:**

> This was suppose to be a "Derek is a celebrity and Stiles stalks him on Twitter" fic, but then it wasn't.
> 
> Then it was getting really angsty, and it ended up not as angsty.
> 
> Anyways, enjoy.
> 
> (Also, extensive creative liberties were taken: instead of the whole 'wolfing out' thing in the show, when the werewolves shift they shift into actual wolves.)

Funnily enough, it's Scott who introduces him to it. Scott who bounds up to him one day at middle school and says “dude, you have _got_ to check this out!” And so Stiles does, because he's a good and curious best friend. He goes home that day, and the first thing he does before homework or “chores” (which is really just him making sure there's space at the dining room table for them to eat) is open a new tab and type it in.

_[www.tumblr.com](http://www.tumblr.com/) _

It's blue and weird, and like all websites when you first visit, it's unfamiliar. All the same, Stiles makes an account with his email he had to get for his honor's english class, and simply scrolls endlessly through pages and pages of whatever he feels like. He picks up some recipes his mom will like, and finds a show his dad might want to start watching, and he reads article after article, he 'reblogs' and 'likes' and 'follows' everything and everyone he can until it's dinner time and his mom is knocking at his door.

He closes his laptop good naturedly and follows his mom, latching onto her part way down the stairs in a hug.

)

He follows Lydia Martin on tumblr two weeks later; she's had an account for almost a month, and she posts a lot of things like corny math jokes that only she can get away with liking, and a lot of fashion things, shoes and dresses and “Oh my god, _need”_ in the tags. Stiles isn't very interested in those sort of things, but he's interested in Lydia, so he doesn't mind.

)

Seventh grade comes and goes, and when Scott gets interested and unlucky with other girls, Stiles focuses all his attention on Lydia, on her tumblr. He learns to like fashion, and designers, and he learns to appreciate the subtle art of draping fabric and how hard it must be to properly hem a dress. His mom sits with him through an entire season of Project Runway, and two seasons of America's Next Top Model, and she even critiques his model walk.

Okay, so maybe he liked Lydia's blog more and more by the day, less because of Lydia and more because he was going through a midlife crisis. (His mom told him it was a self awakening and that he was too young to be having a midlife crisis, but the point was the same.)

)

It's Scott who reblogs the post, the picture with _“there are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls”_ in small italicized font underneath it. The picture itself is pretty amazing: three wolves, all staring up at the moon; one is pure white, one streaked in shades of gray, and one solid black. Stiles never considered himself into photography, but he was into fashion and cooking and lacrosse and Law  & Order, so who's to say he can't appreciate photography, too?

He follows the source account— _as-wolves-like-dogs—_ almost instantly.

)

Stiles takes to calling him Chapman, because of his username. He discerns that Chapman is at least sixteen, but no older than nineteen, male, and deeply invested in wolves. Which is weird, but cool. Because while Stiles finds endless delight in endless interests, he respects people who can find one or two things that make them happy and pursue them with equal fervor.

He reblogs everything Chapman posts, all the gorgeous and unbelievable pictures of wolves. There are a lot of the pure white one, which makes Stiles wonder if Chapman works on a wolf farm, or lives in a cabin, or might be a serial killer. He wonders if Chapman goes dog sledding.

Beneath every picture is a quote, and Stiles takes to looking them each up on Google and committing them to memory. He uses them in essays throughout eighth grade and earns confused but pleased looks from his teachers.

Eighth grade, by Christmas, is shaping up to be his best year. He's kind of over Lydia, even if no one believes him. Scott is back to being his best friend. Chapman still hasn't magically messaged Stiles, like he hopes, but Chapman _has_ liked a few of Stiles' posts or vague comments about day to day life.

)

Then, in March, his mom dies.

It's nothing grand, nothing like Stiles ever expected. A car accident in wet spring rain. He kind of always assumed his dad would be lost in the line of fire, leaving him and his mom, leaving Stiles to take over as man of the house and get angry at the new “dad” who might come home someday. Stiles had never really expected his mom to die, like, ever. Which is childish, but it's just how he'd looked at things.

The funeral is sweet and quaint, small and homely and more heart-wrenching than Stiles could bear. 

He sticks it out by his dad's side, though, even though he should be the one sobbing loudly and garnering pity.

)

When he gets home that night, he makes a post on tumblr. It should be the last thing on his mind, but his dad is dead asleep in bed, and Stiles doesn't feel like sleeping.

He opens a new text post.

> _**I just don't know how to feel. What am I supposed to do about this?** _

He logs off almost immediately after, and does go to sleep.

)

He looks at his laptop the next morning, and doesn't even bother with it.

)

He doesn't delete his account, but he stops logging on. And, it seems, everyone around him does as well.

)

By the time he logs on again, it's the first day of sophomore year.

He's stunned, floored, astounded to see he has six messages waiting in his inbox. All the same, he clicks the envelope icon eagerly, and is even _more_ amazed to see that they're all from—from—

_as-wolves-like-dogs_

He reads them like he needs them to breath, though they're all brief.

> _**I'm sorry about your mother.**_

 

 

> _**You haven't been online in a while. I hope you're okay. I know losing a parent can be hard, but I'm always here.**_

__

__

> _**I don't know where you are, but I wish I did. I just lost my family, I could use someone who isn't an idiot to relate to. But you haven't been on in almost a year. I'm sorry.**_

 

 

> _**I'm moving.**_

 

 

> _**I only sent you that message because I'm pretty sure we live near each other, and. I don't know. But I'm moving to New York.**_

 

 

> _**If you ever read these, feel free to message me back.**_

The last one is dated barely a month ago. Stiles stares at the screen, dumbfounded. He's startled out of the trance and nostalgia by the police scanner—he's _borrowing_ it, okay, just like that episode of Spongebob—going off. He all but throws his laptop off to get to the scanner.

) 

When he gets back that night, after leaving Scott alone in the forest and being escorted home by his dad, he opens tumblr again. He goes to _as-wolves-like-dogs_ 's page and scrolls. It's weird, though, to see his page now. The theme is subtly different shades than it was a year and a half ago; Chapman reblogs more and posts pictures less—hasn't posted on in a year. Stiles finds the tag, 'pack,' and scrolls through all the pictures he remembers and ones taken after he'd abandoned tumblr.

They're all still gorgeous, breathtaking, freakish in their perfection.

In all his scrolling, mindless and done well into the wee hours of morning, he finds a post.

> _**My family is gone. All of them. Everyone except my sister.** _

Almost immediately after that, there's a picture of at least twenty wolves. The white one, the black one, the streaked gray one, a deep red brown colored one. It's like a family photo. In it, too, there's a wolf not in any of Chapman's other photos—a heavy rich brown color, almost black in some spots, with ice blue eyes and a smile.

Most of the posts after that are dark, unpleasant, even the text posts have an air of unwarranted destruction. Stiles feels like he can relate, on some level. And he also feels like he's in over his head from just looking at the blog.

He closes it, and sleeps for two hours before his alarm goes off.

)

He unfollows a lot of people, and changes his username and his icon but keeps the badass Batman theme he originally made back in seventh grade. He changes his icon to the moon, and tells Scott it's funny because Scott is a werewolf now. He changes his username to all _alwaystherobin-neverthebatman_ and knows he'll probably be stuck in the theme now, but doesn't care.

)

Eventually, he unfollows Lydia, because he definitely isn't down with all the pictures she posts of her and Jackson. Especially since she doesn't actually use tumblr, and the pictures only get posted there because of her Instagram-Twitter-tumblr connection.

He continues to follow Scott, even after his blog becomes all consumed with bitching about his “diagnosis” and pining over Alison.

_as-wolves-like-dogs_ seldom posts, now, but Stiles can't bring himself to unfollow.

)

They're in the forest, looking for Scott's inhaler, when Stiles sees him.

“ _Dude, that's Derek Hale.”_

)

Stiles is ashamed to admit that it takes him another two weeks to connect the dots. The dots between the Hale fire, and Chapman knowing they lived near each other, and Derek's sister dying, and the convenient posting of a picture of the white wolf again.

When he clicks the “unfollow” button, it's feels like a bottomless pit of shame, despair, sexual frustration, and ice has just opened up inside him.

Maybe he should just become a hipster blog.

)

It's not the “being gay” part that's weird. It's more the, “have been sexually attracted to Derek Hale since before I knew him” part that weirds Stiles out. A lot.

)

He can't “re” follow Derek, because he's obviously a blip on Derek's radar, and the casual “re” following wouldn't go unnoticed. He angst’s about this longer than a sixteen year old guy should, but it isn't as if he's got much else to complain about.

(You know, besides his werewolf best friend officially being better than him at everything, losing the girl of his dreams to the man of his nightmares, realizing he's attracted to a possible serial killer, his dad drowning in whiskey.)

(Aside from all that.)

)

It's after Peter is killed that things come to a point.

Derek, like he's done numerous times in the past, breaks into his room.

“I miss your stupid comments on my posts.” He grits out, looking ready to throw himself out the window.

Stiles looks up from, yes, his tumblr dash. “You do?” He asks, because there's no sense in playing dumb.

“Yes.” Derek answers, unmoving.

“Why?” Stiles can't help to ask.

“Because.” Derek's eyebrows furrow and he looks perplexed, like actual conversation is too hard. “When you were just _that kid_ online, you. You.” Derek's whole body shudders in a twitch. “All I had ever known was wolves. I.”

“Did you think of us as friends?” Stiles asks, grinning and setting his laptop aside. He stands, realizing belatedly that he's in a baggy old t shirt and baggier pajama pants. “Dude.”

Derek doesn't bother with sneering. He simply growls.

“Dude you totally thought of us as internet besties.” Stiles totally gropes the lapels of Derek's leather jacket. All his angsting seems for not, now, since Derek was obviously equally infatuated. “If I follow you again can people ship us?”

“This was a bad idea.”

“Too late,” Stiles tells him, leaning up on his toes to kiss Derek. “Way too late.” He assures. “C'mon, do you have a nice fancy phone? We can cuddle and tumbl together.”

“Why did I think this was okay.”

But he's grinning, smiling, so wide it looks painful; he lets himself be lead to Stiles' bed, and wraps himself around Stiles and watches him scroll. They chat, idly and softly, softer still once Stiles' dad comes home.

“I should go.” Derek says after a haphazard glance at the clock.

“You should stay, because my dad works the early shift tomorrow and then we can have breakfast and Saturday morning cartoons together.”

Derek is half off the bed, one knee dipping into the bed and one hand lightly touching Stiles' ankle. “Okay.” He say and fits back into his spot beside Stiles.

Stiles feels Derek doze off against him. But he can't help it when he asks, “would it be weird if I called you Chapman?”

Derek jerks into dim awareness, and glares at the sunlight streaming in through the window. “What?”

“Nevermind.”


End file.
